Innovation of a Regulatory Mechanism Modulating Semi-determinate Stem Growth through Artificial Selection in Soybean

It has been demonstrated that Terminal Flowering 1 (TFL1) in Arabidopsis and its functional orthologs in other plants specify indeterminate stem growth through their specific expression that represses floral identity genes in shoot apical meristems (SAMs), and that the loss-of-function mutations at these functional counterparts result in the transition of SAMs from the vegetative to reproductive state that is essential for initiation of terminal flowering and thus formation of determinate stems. However, little is known regarding how semi-determinate stems, which produce terminal racemes similar to those observed in determinate plants, are specified in any flowering plants. Here we show that semi-determinacy in soybean is modulated by transcriptional repression of Dt1, the functional ortholog of TFL1, in SAMs. Such repression is fulfilled by recently enabled spatiotemporal expression of Dt2, an ancestral form of the APETALA1/FRUITFULL orthologs, which encodes a MADS-box factor directly binding to the regulatory sequence of Dt1. In addition, Dt2 triggers co-expression of the putative SUPPRESSOR OF OVEREXPRESSION OF CONSTANS 1 (GmSOC1) in SAMs, where GmSOC1 interacts with Dt2, and also directly binds to the Dt1 regulatory sequence. Heterologous expression of Dt2 and Dt1 in determinate (tfl1) Arabidopsis mutants enables creation of semi-determinacy, but the same forms of the two genes in the tfl1 and soc1 background produce indeterminate stems, suggesting that Dt2 and SOC1 both are essential for transcriptional repression of Dt1. Nevertheless, the expression of Dt2 is unable to repress TFL1 in Arabidopsis, further demonstrating the evolutionary novelty of the regulatory mechanism underlying stem growth in soybean

Packet-based Hierarchal Soft Shadow Mapping

International audienceRecent soft shadow mapping techniques based on back-projection can render high quality soft shadows in real time. However, real time high quality rendering of large penumbrae is still challenging, especially when multi-layer shadow maps are used to reduce single light sample silhouette artifact. In this paper, we present an efficient algorithm to attack this problem. We first present a GPU-friendly packet-based approach rendering a packet of neighboring pixels together to amortize the cost of computing visibility factors. Then, we propose a hierarchical technique to quickly locate the contour edges, further reducing the computation cost. At last, we suggest a multi-view shadow map approach to reduce the single light sample artifact. We also demonstrate its higher image quality and higher efficiency compared to the existing depth peeling approaches

Six-Point Subdivision Schemes with Cubic Precision

This paper presents 6-point subdivision schemes with cubic precision. We first derive a relation between the 4-point interpolatory subdivision and the quintic B-spline refinement. By using the relation, we further propose the counterparts of cubic and quintic B-spline refinements based on 6-point interpolatory subdivision schemes. It is proved that the new family of 6-point combined subdivision schemes has higher smoothness and better polynomial reproduction property than the B-spline counterparts. It is also showed that, both having cubic precision, the well-known Hormann-Sabin’s family increase the degree of polynomial generation and smoothness in exchange of the increase of the support width, while the new family can keep the support width unchanged and maintain higher degree of polynomial generation and smoothness

An Adaptive Image Denoising Model Based on Tikhonov and TV Regularizations

To avoid the staircase artifacts, an adaptive image denoising model is proposed by the weighted combination of Tikhonov regularization and total variation regularization. In our model, Tikhonov regularization and total variation regularization can be adaptively selected based on the gradient information of the image. When the pixels belong to the smooth regions, Tikhonov regularization is adopted, which can eliminate the staircase artifacts. When the pixels locate at the edges, total variation regularization is selected, which can preserve the edges. We employ the split Bregman method to solve our model. Experimental results demonstrate that our model can obtain better performance than those of other models

Research Progress on Elements of Wild Edible Mushrooms

Wild edible mushrooms are distributed all over the world and are delicious seasonal foods, rich in polysaccharides, amino acids, vitamins, and other components. At the same time, they contain many essential trace elements and are highly enriched in heavy metals (compared to green plants and cultivated edible mushrooms). Consumers may be exposed to health risks due to excessive heavy metals in the process of consumption. This is also one of the important factors affecting the import and export of edible mushrooms, which is of great concern to consumers and entry and exit inspection and quarantine departments. In this paper, the contents of four essential trace elements of iron, manganese, zinc, and copper and four harmful heavy metals of cadmium, lead, mercury, and arsenic in nearly 400 species of wild edible mushrooms from 10 countries are reviewed. It was found that the factors affecting the elemental content of edible mushrooms are mainly divided into internal and external factors. Internal is mainly the difference in species element-enrichment ability, and external is mainly environmental pollution and geochemical factors. The aim is to provide a reference for the risk assessment of edible mushrooms and their elemental distribution characteristics

Technical exploration of the origins, storage periods and species identification of Boletus bainiugan

To prevent fraud in Boletus bainiugan commodities, this study provides the market with two fast and stable identification models for accurate identification of Boletus bainiugan origins, storage periods and species. Partial least squares discrimination analysis (PLS-DA), Support vector machine (SVM), Residual convolutional neural network (ResNet) and Data-driven soft independent modeling of class analogy (DD-SIMCA) models were built by combining with Fourier transform near-infrared spectroscopy (FT-NIR). The results show that the ResNet model is significant in solving the Boletus bainiugan origin identification problems. The ResNet model had the best performance and highest accuracy compared to the PLS-DA and SVM models. The DD-SIMCA model was the preferred method for the one-class classification problem, achieving an accuracy of over 96% for the Boletus bainiugan storage period and species identification. Non-target class classification accuracy reached 100%. In summary, FT-NIR combined with ResNet and DD-SIMCA models were able to solve the related identification problems of Boletus bainiugan with more satisfactory results

Study on Immunoregulatory Effects of Fucoidan from <i>Sargassum graminifolium</i> In Vivo and Immunoactivation Activity of Its Fecal Fermentation Products Using Co-Culture Model

Fucoidan, brown seaweed-derived dietary fibers (DFs), can be considered a promising candidate for modulating immune responses. Due to its structural complexity and diversity, it is unclear whether Sargassum graminifolium fucoidans (SGFs) also show marvelous immunoregulatory effects. In the present study, two fractions, SGF−1 and SGF−2, were purified from SGFs by DEAE-Sepharose Fast Flow and Sephacryl S-400 HR column chromatography. We investigated the in vivo immune regulatory activity of SGF−2 and explored the immune activation of SGF−2 fecal fermentation products with in vitro fecal fermentation combined with a Caco-2/RAW264.7 co-culture system. In vivo results exhibited that SGF−2 could elevate the thymus/spleen indices, CD8+ splenic T lymphocyte subpopulations, and CD4+ Foxp3+ splenic Tregs. The 16S high-throughput sequencing results showed that SGF−2 administration significantly increased the relative abundance of Lactobacillus, Alloprevotella, Ruminococcus, and Akkermansia. In addition, it was found that SGF−2 fermented by feces could significantly improve the phagocytosis, NO, and cytokine (TNF−α, IL−6, and IL−10) production of macrophages in the co-culture system. These results indicated that SGFs have the potential to modulate immunity and promote health by affecting the gut microbiota

The Impact of Scour on Laterally Loaded Piles Bored and Socketed in Marine Clay

The majority of long-span bridges and offshore construction in deep water are supported by bored pile foundations. Pile foundations under water will be susceptible to scour, which will pose a significant danger to their safe operation. A three-dimensional finite element (FE) numerical analysis was conducted to examine the influence of scour on the responses of laterally loaded drilled piles in marine clays. First, the FE numerical model was calibrated using field test data of a drilled pile that did not include scour in soft marine clay. The findings of numerical modeling reveal that scour decreases the ultimate lateral capacity of socketed drilled piles, with the percentage of reduction being strongly related to scour types and depth, but moderately related to scour hole width and slope angle. Finally, a semi-empirical formula for calculating the effects of scour on the lateral capacity of socketed drilled piles following scour is presented. This method may be utilized fast and effectively to calculate scour’s effects